Thursday, April 24, 2008

Is it worser to know what you want to do with your life or haven't the foggiest idea at all?

I imagine a lot of people would say the latter. I have found that people, especially young adults in their early 20s, are often rather envious of those who have a general direction of how their life would like to turn out. And when I say general, I don't mean, "Work for the man, eat, shit, maybe have sex a couple of times then die."

I mean, "Work for X Company". Or "start up my own company". Or even "get married by X and pop out a kid by X". These kind of guidelines that we run our lives by, ever charging towards attaining the goal is what I mean when I say direction. Unlike the panic attacks that go hand in hand with the latter group, this group knows what they want and (I assume) will work hard towards achieving it.

Personally, I belong in the first group. To put it plainly, I've got a five year plan worked out in my head. The timeline isn't set in stone, but it's safe to say I know what I want to achieve in the near future. Sounds great, right? I suppose on paper it does. I'm pretty sure a representative in the other camp would ask me to sit the fuck down and shut up while they panic about their life choices. Honestly though, it's scary as hell knowing what you want. Equally as scary not knowing, I'm willing to bet.

When you don't know what you want, all your cards, the might-bes, the will-bes, the would-have-beens, are all laid out for you. It's a matter of selecting a couple and narrowing it down to one. You don't stand to lose anything because your choices are still open. On the other hand, you've got everything to lose when you have a plan.

If you fall along the way, BAM, it's 'where the hell did I go wrong?'. If for some reason outside your control you don't get what you want, BAM, it's 'what if I did things differently?. But worst, if you put all your energy and effort and power in succeeding and you still fail, it's, BAM, disappointment of the most bitter 'holy fuck, what do I do know' kind. You're back to square one but with the added knowledge that you've failed before. Taking the building blocks one at a time won't be as easy this time round cause you're going to be second guessing yourself every way through and every big decision will be filled with doublethink (not of the Orwellian kind), trepadition and fear.

Deep down we're all afraid, man. All our actions are a reaction to that innate sense of fear we're all afflicted with. That fear manifests itself throughout our life from epic decisions to minute ones. We work because we fear poverty. We have pets because we fear loneliness. We (attempt to) live our lives to the fullest because we fear that when death comes for us, we'll reflect on the life we've led and go, "If only". But then I'm getting off tangent. Let's go back to the original point.

I can't say who has the bigger claim on that fear. It's not my place and well, I'm sure not there are some people reading this going, "Karen, you just ripped off Donnie Darko's love-fear Lifeline idea", which coincidentally, is a movie I absolutely detest for the simple reason that it's honestly a crap script sold as an existential-like take on mortality sold to the hipper-than-MTV niche of our generation while Gary Jule's 'Mad World' wraps up the trite package. Although I guess if there was anything good that came out of that whole junk was that Lifeline idea and Maggie Gyllenhaal. But then I'm getting off tangent again. Let's retrace our steps yet again.

Like Donnie says, "Everything can't be lumped into two categories. That's too simple." Which I accept and understand and actually agree with. It is rather simple, but then I've always said life is actually a lot simpler than what we make of it. Whether you agree, disagree or feel nothing about this post, it's okay. Just remember that this is one inconsequential word vomit of just one of billions of blogs on the Interwebs.

I'll end with this; beware the next person who tells me I'm so lucky I know what I want to do with my life for I will ask him/her to sit the fuck down and shut up.